Revisions¶
A revision is a formally labelled snapshot of an entity at a specific point in its lifecycle. Revisions give your team a clear, traceable record of every official release of a part, assembly, or document.
Coming from Autodesk Vault?
Revisions in MatStream work similarly to Vault's revision labels. The key difference is that MatStream revision schemes are fully configurable — you are not locked into a single lettering or numbering convention.
Versions vs revisions — a reminder¶
It helps to keep these two concepts distinct:
| Term | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Version | Every save creates a new internal version. This is the full audit trail of every change ever made to an entity. | Version 1, 2, 3, 4... |
| Revision | A formally labelled milestone, created when an entity completes a lifecycle cycle and is officially released. | A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 |
You may save an entity many times (creating many versions) before it reaches its first formal revision. The revision label only advances when your lifecycle process says it should.
Revision schemes¶
A revision scheme defines the sequence of labels used for revisions. Your administrator configures revision schemes at the workspace level and assigns them to categories.
Common revision schemes include:
| Scheme | Example sequence | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Alphabetic | A → B → C → ... → Z | Mechanical parts, assemblies |
| Numeric | 1 → 2 → 3 → ... | Documents, drawings |
| Two-level | AA → AB → ... → AZ → BA | Long-lived items needing many revisions |
Different categories can use different schemes. For example, your mechanical parts might use alphabetic revisions while your engineering documents use numeric ones.
When does a revision advance?¶
A revision label advances when a new revision is formally created. This typically happens as part of your lifecycle process — for example, when an entity transitions from Released back to Draft to begin a new change cycle.
Your administrator configures exactly when and how revisions advance as part of the lifecycle definition for each category.
Automatic revision bumping¶
MatStream can optionally advance the revision automatically when certain events occur on an entity's links — for example, when a child component is added or removed from an assembly's Uses list.
This behaviour is configured per display tab by your administrator using the Bump version on link add and Bump version on link remove settings. When enabled, this ensures traceability is maintained automatically without relying on manual revision management.
Viewing revision history¶
Every entity detail page shows the full revision history — every formal revision ever created, with:
- The revision label (e.g. A, B, C)
- The lifecycle state at the time of release
- Who created the revision and when
- The property values captured at that revision
This gives you a complete, immutable record of what the entity looked like at every official milestone.
Revisions and files¶
File attachments in MatStream are linked to specific entity versions. This means that when you view a historical revision, you see exactly the files that were attached at that point in time — not the current files.
This is particularly important for drawings and CAD files, where the file content must match the revision label precisely for traceability.
Revision labels cannot be edited
Once a revision label has been assigned, it cannot be changed. Revision labels are permanent identifiers and form part of your audit trail. If you need to make changes to a released entity, create a new revision.
Next steps¶
- Lifecycle — understand how lifecycle states and transitions control when revisions are created
- Properties — understand how property values are captured per version
- Overview — back to the entities overview